The Reverend Paul L. Locatelli, the long-time leader of Santa Clara University, succumbed to pancreatic cancer, July 12, 2010, at the age of 71. Father Locatelli was a member of the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) for its entire existence from 1989 through 1996. He served on the AECC Leadership Support and Assessment Task Forces and was Project Director and co-author of the AECC monograph, Assessment for the New Curriculum: A Guide for Professional Accounting Programs. (Gainen, Joanne and Paul Locatelli, Assessment for the New Curriculum: A Guide for Professional Accounting Programs, Accounting Education Series, Volume 11, Sarasota: American Accounting Association, 1995). Locatelli was one of only two individuals (the other was Mel O’Connor) who served on the Commission from its beginning to the end. Other Commission members described Locatelli as a hard working member who attended every meeting, even though he had the distractions of being a University president. Dr. Locatelli was a member of the AICPA, American Accounting Association, and the California Society of CPAs. He received the California Society of CPAs’ 1994 Distinguished Professor of the Year Award.

Locatelli, who grew up on a ranch near Boulder Creek, CA, was the President of Santa Clara University for 20 years, the same school from which he received his undergraduate degree in accounting in 1960. He received a master of divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and a doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in accounting from the University of Southern California in 1971. He entered the Jesuit Order in 1962 and became a CPA in 1965. In 1974, he joined the accounting faculty at Santa Clara University and was the University’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 1978. He later served as Associate Dean and Dean of the business school and then Academic Vice President before becoming president in 1988. Following his retirement from the presidency in 2008, he became University Chancellor and also served as the first secretary of higher education for the International Society of Jesus, working to build connections among Jesuit universities across the globe. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco in 2008.

His particular forte as president was his financial know-how. He strengthened the University’s financial position by such controversial acts as eliminating the football program and dissociating the University from its fraternities and sororities. During his twenty years as president, the University’s endowment grew from $77 million to over $700 million.

Locatelli served as vice-chair of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and on Boards of Trustees for four universities and on the Senior Accrediting Commission of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) as well as its Board of Directors. Most of his publications dealt with world affairs, the role of Catholics in the modern world, and accounting issues, particularly dealing with service learning in accounting.